


She Taught Me

by gbMS



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s06e08 Let's Kill Hitler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:40:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gbMS/pseuds/gbMS
Summary: How River learned to fly the TARDIS





	She Taught Me

_“Please. Now we have to save your parents. Don't run. Now, I know you're scared, but never run when you're scared. Rule seven. Please.”_

His words echoed through her head as she barreled her way into the TARDIS and stood, unblinking and filled with panic starting at the controls.

“Right. Child of the TARDIS. I need to drive.” She growled to herself. “How do I drive?” She said to herself, “HOW DO I DRIVE?” she shouted, largely to herself, the sound of her voice echoing through the large room.

“Voice interface active.” Came a female voice from behind her. Melody turned, her curls bouncing around as she did to her interactive teacher.

There stood a stone faced blonde, straight hair down just passed her shoulders but pulled up on the top, out of her face in in early 21st century style. Her jacket was a familiar color, if a bit dark.

“Oh, TARDIS you’re a blonde? Should have figured.”

The blonde spoke in a robotic voice, devoid of emotion, body remaining remarkably still despite Melody circling it. “I am the combination of human and TARDIS.”

“Can’t _you_ just be _you_? I need to go now, I don’t have time for bumbling!”

“The TARDIS’s preferred method of communication is more direct in nature. A human analogue is required.”

“Alright! Just get it done!”

The blonde began speaking robotically. “Type 40 TARDIS user manual. Galactic coordinates and copyrights withstanding as of the Shadow Proclamation edict number four hundred twenty seven billion, four hundred sixty four million, three—"

Melody pounded her fists on an empty bit of console angrily. “Is there any way you could _show_ me what you’re talking about?! Or at the very least not sound like you are the _bloody_ manual?! I don’t need the footnotes!”

The blonde tilted her head, seeming to get a bemused look on her face as her eyes ringed with gold for a beat, possibly resetting it’s program. “Melody Pond, some footnotes are very important. Alright, watcha need?”

“I want to learn to fly her.” Melody huffed as if the TARDIS should have guessed, “I have to save my parents. _Now_.”

“You’re the one who’s killed our clever idiot.” She paused and looked away momentarily, “in twenty two minutes.”

“I suppose you’re against teaching me then?” Melody seethed, blowing an errant tress out of her face in frustration.

“Oh, no, Melody, I’ll _def’nitly_ teach you.” The blonde looked at her, head tilting slightly. Her tongue poked out of her teeth as she smiled. The hologram pointed to the dematerialization lever, “Pull that, and we'll begin.”

She pulled the lever immediately, looking with panic to the teacher as the time rotor made noises and the whole room around her shuddered.

“Good,” the tutor paused, moving very slowly toward her pupil, “Now listen.”

“He’s got twenty minutes!” Melody explained, trying to impress upon the blonde a sense of urgency, “and they have less! Get a move on!”

“We’re in the _vortex_. There’s no time here.”

“There’s no time there, either! Lets go!” Melody fumed, eyes blazing as she tried to intimidate the hologram.

“Melody,” hey voice echoed slightly, gaining a small amount of attention and fear from the woman. The hologram's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward toward Melody, the projection of a person very much invading Melody’s personal space. The blonde’s eyes and voice briefly hard. “Lesson One. You are in a _Time_ _Machine_. There _is_ time.”

“Now.” The holographic tutor appeared a few feet away and smiled as if nothing were amiss, “Basic safety features of TARDIS flight, yeah? Bit important, an' _someone_ forgets ‘em 46.82 percent of the time…”

 

 

 

 

Five minutes had passed.

Her parents were likely dead or dying, and this damn machine had no bloody sense of urgency about it. Like they didn’t matter. Suddenly dystopian novels about the unfeeling nature of machines made so much more sense, even if this machine was a thinking, feeling soul, it seemed to lack empathy.

She was supposed to be _this_. She was _supposed_ to be dispassionate about lives and happy to do what needed to be done but now all she wanted to do was save her idiotic parents.

 

 

 

 

Twelve minutes had passed.

The hologram was a very efficient teacher, able to speak things out in ways that would be understood rather than amazingly unnecessarily complicated jargon that manual no doubt would have used. She was surprisingly well thought out for a hologram, but, as Melody figured, the TARDIS was apparently a thinking, feeling machine, it could logically create a thinking, feeling hologram.

However, it apparently was missing a sense of urgency. How could a _time_ machine have no sense of _time_?!

 

 

 

Fifteen minutes has passed.

Thinking, feeling… Melody even said something rude once and swore she made her simulated tutor snort. She seemed to have programmed tics and mannerisms of a human, occasionally even letting slip a thicker accent, and it already had a pretty thick accent, at least heavier than a normal hologram would have. She would never admit that she actually liked it, much less that absolutely loved it. Was there nothing this glorious time ship couldn’t do?

“Technically the controls are isomorphic. But that's mostly when he remembers to flip this switch.” She laid a hand on a switch, it unaffected and still clearly visible beneath the translucent appendage. “And he forgets that more than he’d admit.”

Melody grew irritated, the lesson was taking far longer than she’d thought it would have and she had yet to actually touch controls. The hologram was just that, though, a hologram. It couldn’t touch Melody, but every time she reached for the controls, the hologram's eyes would glow and sparks would explode from the console. Very irritating.

“Part of the TARDIS mechanism is, in fact, telepathic so often when she understands your meanin' she will work with you and interpret your mistakes. Now, by no means does that mean you can just go willy-nilly hittin' buttons, there are, unfortunately for people not Time Lord, several buttons that will kill you an' one that _may_ make you think you're a bowl of petunias. That was an adjustment he made a few centuries ago an' clung to, did get him to rethink the whale button…”

“Are you serious?!”

Not looking up from the lever that was her previous lesson, the hologram popped her forefinger directly and eerily toward her pupil. “Never _knowingly_. Never _knowingly_ be serious,” she retracted the finger, “An’, well, lied. Just disconnected the whale button. He thinks still it'll work. It was in a book an' he liked it. He’s like that.” Melody fumed and angrily swyped at the hologram. It rippled but did not break.

“I could have _gone_ by now!”

The blonde lifted her head to Melody and narrowed her eyes again at the red-faced curl-topped woman, voice booming and coming from all around the control room, the walls practically vibrating with the intensity of it. “You need ta calm down. You're angry. I get it. But you need to be less emotional, Melody, right now. ‘m takin' my time specific’ly so you can calm down, yeah?”

Melody was red hot, her face beet red, her hair garnering static as she blustered about.

“You are no help to anyone if you are too emotional to think.” The hologram's voice boomed. “Think, Melody Pond.”

Melody's breath hitched. She stayed quiet for a moment before acquiescing. “ _You’re_ bossy.”

“Yep.” The hologram popped the p, accepting her adjective with a call type of glee and pointed to the object of her next lesson. “Shall we continue or do you want to winge some more? Dear God, you’re hard work young.”

 

 

 

Nineteen minutes has passed.

“Now, these little things here?” a semi-translucent hand gestured to two blue, glowing switches on the console. “They’re the stabilizers. Right now they’re blue, but they aren’t always blue. I’ll try to pull up what they look like on the other few dozen desktops he’s prone to use.” She looked happy, “He never uses ‘em. He should, but he secretly likes the shaking. Hurts a bit, but li'l worth his smiles 'bout it. Last time I saw ‘em they were a dusky orange an' toggles.”

“You haven’t done that,” Melody noted out loud, nodding at the switches.

“Done what?” the hologram put her hands on her hips, appearing seamlessly on the other side of the console by what was likely her next talking point.

“Talk about anything as your experience. It’s awkward thinking that you’d fly yourself. Do you mean last time they were used?”

“Mmmm,” the blonde paused as if thinking, “no.”

“The human analogue, then?”

“Yes.” The tutor said quickly.

“Who was she?”

“She created herself.” The answer was simple, the swiftness with which the machine presented it made certain it was presenting no puzzles or riddles.

Melody smirked. “You’re having pronoun troubles, there, TARDIS.”

The tutor's analogue face exploded in a single “Ha!” before she chuckled to herself, “Oh, Melody, you have _no_ idea.”

“Who was she?”

The tutor pointed a knowing finger at Melody. “ _Not_ River Song.” The hologram hadn’t made eye contact with her since she started going on this subject. It’s light brown eyes fixed on several things on the console.

Melody harrumphed, crossing her arms a bit, “That wasn’t the question.”

“Yes it was,” the blonde looked at her, those light brown eyes large, she tapped her own temple twice in quick succession, “’m telepathic, yeah?”

“Fine, but that's not an answer.”

“Once upon a time,” the analogue said without warning or preamble.

“That’s a story, not a person.” Melody interrupted.

“We’re all stories in the end,” she blinked once, looking at the console as she continued, “Once Upon a Time, a thief stole a woman’s heart, so she borrowed one. The bad wolf tried to eat her up, he freed her, then trapped her, and she became the bad wolf.” The analogue seamlessly switched gears, “now this—”

“Was that the end?” Melody asked.

“No. Now these—”

“Then tell me the end.” Her hair bounced with her demand.

“Spoilers. Now these—”

“ _Wait_ —" Melody growled.

The analogue cut her off by raising one of her hands. She sucked in her bottom lip and smiled cheekily as she looked over Melody, eyes squinting in thought before they returned to normal, “ _You_ told _me_ to wait,” The tutor smirked, her honey brown eyes sparkling with delight. “You're calmer, yeah? I think you’re ready.”

The interface walked directly into Melody. Melody’s arms moved involuntarily, lightly touching what needed to be touched in the order of what they were and committing the why’s and how’s to Melody’s memory. The blonde hologram quickly left Melody’s body and stood near by while the bushy haired woman stood, blinking at what had just occurred in under a minute.

“That's _all_ you had to do?!”

“You had to calm down an' think.” The hologram smiled brightly, “You're a clever girl when you think. More accessible when you’re less emotional. Always think.”

“Thank you, TARDIS.”

“Nah. No thanks. You’re a Child of the TARDIS. Just save our clever idiot.” The hologram winked.

Melody paused, hand poised, hovering over the controls. “Anything else I should know?”

The voice interface seemed to think on this. “Fairy tales and legends are important. You’ll be your own legend some day. Make it a good one.” Her eyes glowed, rimmed softly with gold before they calmed back to light brown, “Go on. Countin' down from when you land, time marches on. Tick, Tock goes the clock.” She shook her head. “Deactivating voice interface.”

The hologram disappeared.

She tentatively touched the controls, her nerves ramping up again but much less than they were. She heard noises and light dimming and rising from the rotor, echoing voices as she materialized around her parents. A familiar voice rang through the room.

_“Doctor? Doctor, you did it. He did it!”_

Melody stepped slowly out from behind the console to see her Mum and Dad, separating from being huddled together.

“I seem to be able to fly her. She showed me how. She taught me. The Doctor says I'm the child of the TARDIS. What does he mean?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

_"I had lessons from the very best."_

_"Well, yeah."_

_"Shame you were busy that day."_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Was trying to get into a headspace and this happened.


End file.
